The invention relates to a cigarette packaging machine.
Conventional machines used to package cigarettes in the types of wrappers most widely marketed are designed, in the majority of instances, to produce an elongated parallelepiped pack containing a given number of cigarettes (usually twenty) some 0.30" in diameter. While the length of such packs may vary, often considerably, their width and depth generally will not depart materially from sets of dimensions regarded by most manufacturers as being standard, and, accordingly, the usual packaging operations of ordering the cigarettes into groups and enveloping them in their wrappings can be effected by machine units which, with a minimum of modification, are able to handle almost any kind of regular package.
In the event, however, that the cigarettes to be packaged exhibit a diameter substantially dissimilar to that mentioned, and are destined to occupy a pack that differs notably from one of regular size, the machine units in question can no longer be adapted by effecting simple modifications; instead, total replacement becomes necessary. Such will be the case for example, when it is sought to package super slim cigarettes (approx 0.15" in diameter) in the same quantity and arrangement as conventionally adopted for regular cigarettes; in fact, the manufacture of super slims involves a marked reduction in the depth of the finished pack, with the result that the pack can no longer be handled by a conventional wrapping unit, or at least, extensive modification will be required to render the unit suitable.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a cigarette packaging machine which, whilst in receipt of groups of cigarettes that may exhibit overall dimensions considerably reduced from those of a group of cigarettes of regular diameter (0.30" approx), is nonetheless able to turn them out in packs of substantially conventional size that can be handled by standard wrapping machines without any prior modification or adaptation being necessary.